The Lost Moments of HoO
by Bookworm1756
Summary: ...The Civil War museum with the crazy zombies... The blowing up of New Rome... All da Ladies Luv Leo... All these mentioned (and hilarious!) bits of HoO—told but never written. And now they are.
1. While Piper's Turned to Gold

**Okay, I've decided to start a new story, which is this! But I'm still writing ****_Life at the Wilderness School _****so this will just be updates when I'm bored. So don't get excited. But maybe when I'm done that story I'll pay more attention to this one.**

**Anyway, the topic is just the missing bits of HoO. Sometimes they're super minor, or something that someone mentioned. But either way, I felt that I needed to do this. **

**(And, ****_NO,_**** this isn't the story from a different POV. This is what happened in between.)**

**Enjoy the first chapter!**

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_**(During **_**The Lost Hero**_**, when Piper is unconscious with hypothermia after their encounter with Midas.)**_

Leo awoke, blinking his eyes to focus. He was sitting next to a river, while a few yards away Coach Hedge helped Jason dunk a solidified Piper into the rushing waters. He was wrapped in a blanket, and his hand hurt.

"Hey, Leo!" Hedge yelled. "Good to see you back in the land of the living."

"Sure." Leo sniffled. "What happened?"

"Well," Jason told him, "Midas turned you and Piper to gold."

"I always knew I was a golden star," Leo muttered with a faint smile.

"Can you remember any of it?" Jason asked, resting Piper on the grass and sitting down next to his friend.

Leo thought about it. "There was a bright white light," he decided, "and I was walking toward it. A bright, white, inspirational light. And I was thinking, is this the end? Is this the end of the wonderful and handsome Leo Valdez? When suddenly something yanked me backwards off my feet and I was seated where I am now."

Jason blinked. "Seriously?" he asked.

"No," Leo told him. "I was reaching for some sort of epic screwdriver to defeat the evil overlord with one hand and summon fire with the other when that creepy king touched my arm. After that I was here."

"I knew it," said Hedge, sitting down next to the two boys. "If Hades is a bright white light of inspiration then I'm Ke$ha. Although I do got some moves like jagger." He grinned.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," said Jason, turning away from the goat.

"Also, Ke$ha doesn't sing that song," Leo added. "Your first clue should have been that the guy singing is a guy."

"What?" Hedge demanded. "Pfft. No way. Ke$ha uses auto-tune, like she always does. I'm not even sure she can sing."

"She can't," added Jason.

"Exactly! You gotta learn your stars by profile. Read the celebrity gossip and stuff. A few of those guys are your cousins. Like, for instance, I recently learned that One Direction is just a group of Justin Beiber clones gone haywire with cosmetics and auto-tune so that they sound British."

"One of them is Scottish," Leo added.

Hedge grinned. "That's what they _want _you to think. They're all Canadian, like JB! It explains their ridiculous hair, at least."

He would have continued, but something loud and shrilly screamed from inside the mansion along with the sound of something breaking painfully.

"We should probably consider leaving," Jason decided.

Leo remembered Festus, and how he had been decapitated. "How?" he asked.

Jason thought for a moment. "The wind spirits," he decided. "Maybe we can harness them somehow."

"Good luck," Hedge snorted.

**-o-O-o-**

_"WHOO HOO!"_ Hedge screamed into the wind. _"I'M A FLYING SATYR, BABY!"_

Well, Jason had done it—somehow. But the fact that he did didn't make it any less terrifying.

Of course, Coach Hedge was loving it. Leo and Jason, not so much. But at least if Jason fell he could fly himself out of there. Piper was still sleeping peacefully oblivious to the chaos around her, although they had finally gotten rid of the gold.

When Leo asked where Jason was steering them, he had replied that he was just following the glittery air trail he had seen the previous day. But they had no idea where that glittery air trail led to.

"Uh, Jason!" Leo yelled. "Mountains in the distance, and coming closer at a speed not recommended for human beings!_ Get us out of here!"_

The wind spirits kept flying toward the mountainside. "Bring it on!" Hedge yelled to it. "I'm readier than a satyr about to crash into the side of a mountain painfully! Yeah!"

Leo yelled as Jason pulled back on the wind spirits and forced them to fly in any other direction. Unfortunately, though, they chose downwards. The crash landing wasn't pretty.

Leo landed headfirst into the snow and sank in up to his ankles. He struggled to righten himself again, but the snow wouldn't allow him. He decided to try a different tactic and he melted all everything around him into water. He broke above the surface, gasping for air.

"I'm alive!" he yelled, and only then did it occur to him that getting himself wet in the middle of winter was not such a good idea.

Jason was just finishing wrestling the final wind spirit into their bag. Hedge was skipping around and kicking the snow, yelling, "Take that, cupcake!" Piper was still dozing calmly in the corner oblivious to everything around her, though every once in a while she'd flinch and mutter, "No... Scary donkey-man..."

"What now?" Leo asked, crawling out of the snow awkwardly.

"We go to that cave," Jason decided, pointing to a small shelter in the mountainside. "And then we rest. Hopefully we'll find that wind master's castle soon."

"Good enough for me," Hedge decided, skipping over. Leo shrugged and followed him at a slower pace, sneezing every once in a while, leaving Jason to deal with lugging Piper over. Jason didn't mind. Leo was soaking wet and just under half an hour ago he'd been dead. And Hedge was busy kicking the cave walls and searching for random booby-traps, yelling out 'cupcake' every once in a while. Jason sighed and slung Piper across his back, following his friends.

_Great, _he thought. _Now the crazy goat is a friend. My life sucks._

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**I have the next chapter planned out, but no guarantees on the update. Remember? LatWS is still the bigger one.**

**...Although, that doesn't mean you shouldn't review.**

**Also, fell free to PM me or just to include in your reviews ideas, just bits of HoO you found missing. (But, no, I'm not making up scenarios just if you want to see some romance fluff. Go to a different story for that.)**

**REVIEW! NOW!**


	2. The Shaving Cream on Jell-O Thing

**Hello, and I am back with a new chapter. Yay!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own HoO. (HA! THAT RHYMES! ...not really but still...)**

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_**(During **_**The Lost Hero,**_** the shaving cream on the Jell-O thing Leo mentioned on the bus to the Grand Canyon.) **_

_**AN: Jason is in here because this is a fake-memory the Mist gave Leo.**_

It was a normal Friday at the Wilderness School, and by normal I mean a bit more ordinary than what usually happened there, but not by much. The sun was shining, the trees were losing their leaves, and Piper's crush still didn't know she existed.

But the last thing didn't matter at the moment because of what Leo was telling her right then.

"You did _WHAT?"_

"Well, I didn't know you'd get so worked up about it," Leo told her apologetically, looking away.

"Leo, that's wrong!" Piper yelled. "I mean, I know he's really mean to you, but why _this!"_

"Because he's a bully," Leo replied.

"He's our _principal."_

Leo shrugged. "Teachers, bullies; they're the same thing in the end."

Piper face-palmed.

Jason walked over to their table, and Piper felt her stomach performed a flip-flop. "Hi, Jason," she greeted shyly.

"Hey," he replied. "Why is Leo making an aerosol can out of cafeteria tin foil?"

"Oh, just some crazy thing he likes to do," Piper told him stupidly, wishing not for the first time her friend wouldn't make her look like an idiot in front of Jason.

"That's cool," said Jason. "You mind if I sit with you guys?"

"Not at all," Piper declared in a way that she hoped didn't make her look desperate. "Leo, why don't you put your prank down and eat with us like a normal human being?"

"Just one sec," he replied, taking out a mini-hammer and gently tapping the tin foil into place.

"Anyway, Jason," Piper continued, "how's life? What's your next class?"

"Uh, French," he replied.

"French?" Piper asked. "I love French! Isn't that crazy? We have so much in common!" She didn't mention how she hated the teacher for giving them so much homework.

"Nah, Spanish is better," Leo added to the conversation, setting the hammer down and placing the cap on top. "Lots of cool people speak it. Like me." He set the nozzle in Piper's direction by accident and pressed the button on top. A white foam came out of the can and into Piper's face.

"Oops," he said.

Piper gasped, frozen. "Leo!" she yelled, getting ready to strangle him.

"Here, let me help," Jason said, grabbing a napkin and gently dabbing at Piper's face. She hoped the shaving cream hid her blush.

"There," Jason said. "Hopefully, Leo will learn how to control that thing of his."

"Yeah…" Piper added with half a mind to grab Leo's device and squirt some more shaving cream on her face.

"Hey, I decided that I actually want some of that dessert. See you guys later." He stood up with his food tray and walked back to the cafeteria line, smiling at Piper. She gave him a shy wave.

Piper was too busy swaying to be mad at Leo for squirting shaving cream on her. "He's so cute," she said dreamily.

Leo pressed the nozzle again and shot more shaving cream at her. "Oops, wrong button," he said, though it hadn't been an accident.

"Ha, ha," Piper said, wiping it off with another napkin. She wondered how she and Leo had become friends. Obviously it was by luck.

"Anyway," said Leo, pulling out a tray of Jell-O, "I've noticed that our principal Mr. Conwalker—it's a hilarious name, I know—loves the Jell-O the lunchladies serve. But he always chooses the dish with the most whipped-cream on top. So I'm going to overload this thing with so much 'whipped-cream' that he'll just have to choose it, and then immediately afterwards regret crossing paths with me. Ta-da?"

"Sure," Piper said, still in her dreamed-up Jasper wedding.

Leo took this as an invitation to proceed, so he took his homemade shaving cream bottle and sprayed the topping on the Jell-O. Then he slyly snuck down to the end of the line where a fresh tray of the dessert was waiting. Leo carefully edged his plate in the middle where it would be most noticeable and rushed back to their table.

But the prank didn't go according to plan. When their principal Mr. Conwalker got to the front of the line, he only ordered a bottle of water.

"On a diet," he announced to one of the lunchladies. Then he turned and walked away.

Leo cursed, looking down at his bottle of improvised shaving cream in dissatisfaction. "Now I'll have to think up of something else to prank him with!" he complained. He stood up to retrieve his Jell-O when he realized Jason was already walking toward it.

"This isn't good," he said.

Jason walked back to their table and sat down with the shaving cream'd Jell-O. "Hello," he greeted.

"Hi." Piper grinned bashfully.

Leo, on the other hand, had already left for Math Class. He didn't want to be there when the puking started.

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**Ha ha... Leo.**

**Also, this isn't some scenario I made up. Leo actually mentioned it in the early stages of ****_The Lost Hero. _****Check it out for yourself.**

**And, as always, review. Please?**


	3. The Blowing Up of Rome

**Hello, everybody! I am back with a newly updated chapter! *everyone begins to applaud and I take a bow***

**And no, I do not own Leo, Octavian, Argo II, or the episode in which Leo takes the Argo II and blows up Rome. *smiles cutely***

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_**(During **_**The Mark of Athena, **_**when Leo takes Octavian to see the Argo II.)**_

Octavian was still fuming, something that Leo enjoyed immensely.

In all honesty, he didn't really like the guy. From what he knew, the Romans were a pretty cool bunch. I mean, Leo knew Jason, and Jason was an awesome friend. But Octavian was just rude. Speaking out during the meeting Leo didn't pay attention to… that's just wrong.

"And here is the grand and magnificent Argo II," Leo announced once they reached the hovering ship. Most of the campers were eating as far away as possible from it so that they didn't have to worry about the ship suddenly falling on them. "You have my permission to be amazed by its outstanding awesomeness."

"I've seen bigger," Octavian muttered, looking up at the ship above him and crossing his arms, unimpressed.

"Oh, Festus'll love you," Leo told him, patting his back.

Octavian's head snapped back. "Who's Festus?" he asked.

Leo grinned and pulled out the ship's command remote from his tool belt. He pressed the big red button on the front and a hatch above them slid open, a simple rope ladder falling out.

"Ladies first." Leo gestured the ladder.

Octavian scowled but grabbed the rope nonetheless, scaling it halfway. Leo joined him, and once aboard he pressed the button again to have the contraption seal up behind them.

"Welcome aboard my wonderful and epic ship," Leo announced. "Again, I take compliments."

Octavian looked around in disgust. "This is your magnificent and proud warship?" he demanded. "No wonder we defeated you guys all those millennia ago."

Leo just grinned. "Let me show you Festus," he said.

**-o-O-o-**

"So..." said Octavian slowly, "...you have a giant dragon's head to be your ship's statue. Wouldn't a mermaid suffice?"

Festus snorted and shot fire at the Roman. Octavian squealed loudly and jumped back, and Leo couldn't contain a laugh.

"We must have been real idiots back in the day if you guys managed to take over us," he snorted, and Octavian glowered red with anger and embarrassment.

"Whatever," the older boy decided, brushing down his toga, or whatever it was called. "I believe my stay here with you is over. Take me back to my legion."

Leo shrugged and began to take him back to the rope ladder, naming things as they walked by them.

"…And there's a shield, and a sword, and another sword… oh, look, a hat." Leo grabbed the sheet of paper Piper had been using to doodle on during their trip to Cali and quickly folded it into a paper hat. "There," he said, placing it on Octavian's head. He took a step back and admired it. "You look good as a child sailor, Roman, you do."

Octavian scowled and swatted the hat off. "Just get me off of here," he muttered scornfully.

"Okay, okay. Hot pants," Leo said quietly, walking again. "And here's a pole, and a creaky wooden board, and a ballistae, and a…"

Leo suddenly stopped walking. "What?" Octavian asked after a moment. "What are you doing? Is this some sort of trick?" He crossed his arms. "I don't like tricks, Greek."

Leo unfroze. "I'm sorry," he said, blinking a few times. "I was just…" He grinned in a way that Octavian didn't like. "Thinking. Yes, that's it."

He turned and walked away from Octavian. "What are you doing now?" he asked. "Get me off of this ship!"

Octavian realized in horror where Leo was headed. _"Pedicabo__," _he swore in Latin just as Leo swung the ballistae toward his camp and fired.

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**Possessed Leo! *everyone screams and runs around in circles***

**And, yes, 'pedicabo' is a swear word in Latin, according to Google Translate. Search it if you really want to or you're really bored.**

**Anyway, you should really review. I have another story right now; _Life at the Wilderness School. _You should really check that out!**

**And, as always, PEACE OUT IN YOURS AND DEMIGODISHNESS! *flashes two peace signs***


	4. The Time We Set Hedge's Pants on Fire

**Disclaimah! I do not own HoO.**

**Deals with it!**

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**_(During _****The Lost Hero, ****_when Annabeth is telling Piper that she has fake memories of Jason, and Piper counters with, "My memories aren't fake. They're _****so ****_real. THE TIME WE SET COACH HEDGE'S PANTS ON FIRE. The time Jason and I watched a meteor shower on the dorm roof and I finally got the stupid guy to kiss me…" AN: Jason is in this because this is a fake memory had._**

Piper sat beside Jason and Leo in the gymnasium as they waited for Coach Hedge to show up. It was Physical Education, and Piper would have hated the class had her friends not been there with her.

Finally, the teacher showed up. "All right, cupcakes!" he yelled. "Dodgeball! This class I'll be watching you, and the ones that aren't dead by the end of the period will have a chance to join the dodgeball team!"

Piper slipped her hand into Jason's. She knew how badly he wanted to be on that team by how he constantly talked about it. Leo, on the other hand, didn't really care, which was supported by the fact that he was creating a mini-BB gun out of toothpicks at the time.

"Uh, I number you off!" Coach decided. "Ones on this side of the gym, twos on the other! One two, one two, one two…"

In the end, Leo and Jason were on the same team while Piper was on the other. Leo seemed a little nervous, probably because Piper's team had Mike, the hardest pitcher on the baseball team and one of the most serious people when it came to sports, but Jason seemed ready to pummel the life out of this game.

"And… fight!"

Piper hung back while her team ran forward to grab some balls lined up in the middle. Jason raced forward, dragging along a protesting Leo. He grabbed two of them and two of Piper's teammates were automatically out.

Piper kept near the back where she could grab a ball every once in a while and throw it in vain, but where it was unlikely for her to get hit.

A ball rolled her feet. Piper scooped it up and was about to throw it when someone tapped her shoulder. It was Mike. He pointed to it and grunted as if he were trying to say, _Give… Me… Ball?_

Piper shrugged and handed it to him. Mike took it in one hand and swerved his body around, and using his entire body's momentum he swung it as hard as he could to the nearest offending player's face… who just happened to be Leo.

Piper winced as Leo fell backwards and skidded five feet from the blow, eventually hitting his head on the wall behind him. Coach Hedge called him out.

"For being hit and not taking it like a man and getting up!" he yelled, kicking Leo in the leg. "Hya! Hya! Get up!"

"Oh, come on, Coach," said Jason, stepping in to defend his friend. "Mike hit him in the face with a fast ball; that's _got _to be a penalty."

Hedge stared him in the face for a moment, which was a bit tricky as he was barely taller than five feet. "What did you say?" he spat at Jason. "Are you saying that me—the _coach—_is wrong?"

Jason faltered, because for someone so short Coach Hedge could be very threatening when he wanted to be. But told him defiantly, "Yes."

Hedge grabbed the whistle hanging from his neck and blew it in Jason's face. "Out!" he yelled. "Go sit on the bench!"

"What?" Jason demanded. "But I wasn't hit or any—!"

Hedge blew the whistle three more times. "I don't care, now sit out!"

Piper covered her face with her hand, embarrassed for Jason. For starters everyone was staring. Second, if he lost the first round of dodgeball he'd never be invited to join the team.

Jason helped Leo to his feet—who was still lying painfully on the floor—and the two of them made their way to the side benches.

Piper's heart wasn't in the game anymore. She got called out two minutes later, and she sat on her team's bench watching the game go on without much care.

**-o-O-o-**

When they announced the members of the dodgeball team the following week Jason's name wasn't on the list.

"It's okay," Piper reassured him, squeezing his hand. "There'll be other teams you can make it on."

Jason shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter," he told her. "Hedge was wrong. It was worth the fall."

Piper smiled. "That's what I like about you," she said, swinging her arm. "You're always so loyal to your friends. Now let's go get lunch."

**-o-O-o-**

Two weeks later, they had one of their 'nature classes' during their gym period. A 'nature class' was a lesson where they taught you meaningless wilderness junk (hence the name The Wilderness School) you'd never actually need in the wild like how to properly frolic through flowers or how to knit daisies into hats (Leo would never forget that lesson).

Today they were learning how to create a fire using a shoelace and a piece of cardboard. Hedge was the teacher (lucky them!), and whenever someone couldn't start a small flame he'd yell out in frustration and start it for them, which basically ruined the whole point.

They were set up in pairs; Jason and Piper worked together while Leo stood around a fire pit next to them with some other kid. Leo was talking to Jason absentmindedly while his partner was trying to work when Hedge came up to their group.

"Let's see what you have, Valdez," he said, and when he realized that they didn't have a fire he began to have a meltdown like he had done with all the other kids (including Jason and Piper).

After a minute or so Hedge knelt down so that he could start Leo's fire for him. Piper stared into the flames of her own fire and realized how easy it would could be to simply blow on them and have Hedge's pants set on fire.

She smiled at the thought, and quietly mentioned it to Jason. He grinned too.

"I'd do it," Jason whispered to her. "There are tons of fires around here, so he can't possibly know which one started it."

Piper wanted to do it, but hesitated. It wasn't something very like her to do. But then she remembered how Hedge had yelled at Jason for sticking up for his friend and allowed a bully to slam a 20mph ball in Leo's face and came to a decision.

Five seconds later Hedge was running around with his track pants on fire, screaming and cursing bloody heck. Half of the kids were genuinely worried, the other half laughing their heads off, including Piper, Jason and Leo.

Hedge finally managed to put the fire out by rolling pathetically on the ground, which made pretty much everyone scream in laughter, the kind kids silently chortling slightly. When the threat was disposed of, Hedge was a very angry man.

"Who did this?" he roared, and everyone was instantly silent. "Who set my _PANTS _on fire!?"

This innocent sentence made everyone crack up again.

In the end, Hedge put two and two together and came to a conclusion that Jason and Piper did it, and somehow Leo was involved because he was their friend. They got detention for a week and had to help Coach put all the gym supplies away every day for twice that long.

But it was worth it.

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**I'm sorry, but recently I re-read TLH and when I saw that line I thought "YES! YES YES YES I HAVE TO DO THAT!"**

**Anyway, please review. I'll really appreciate them. And don't be afraid to send me a time or place you thought was missing.**


	5. The Prophecy Book

**Finally, we go into the ****_Son of Neptune _****for thy first time.**

**Disclaimer: You know what it is.**

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**_(During_ ****The Son of Neptune, **_**when Ella reads the lost Sybilline Books and memorizes a prophecy.)**_

_Whack!_

Ella shrieked and flew away from the crazy madman with the whip. He laughed and lashed his weapon at one of Ella's sisters, cutting through her side and causing her to scream.

Of course, most of these harpies were no longer Ella's sisters. They had been beaten too hard; lost too many battles. They were tired, hungry, and hurt. These traits made some people mean and desperate.

Once upon a time, they all lived in joy and happiness. Ella and her sisters would brutally attack the blind and wrong man and have tons of fun doing it. And they were allowed to do it! Then he died, so they went along with their own business. For a while they worked at Aeolus's castle, but soon discovered that that guy was slightly mental and left. They drifted from place to place, wandering around, having fun and goofing off. They once considered applying for a job as cleaning harpies for Camp Half-Blood, but decided that that was beneath them.

Then the war with Kronos. Ella and the others kept in the shadows for that, trying not to bring too much attention to themselves. Finally it ended, and they hung out with the Party Ponies for a few weeks before heading off to Portland.

That had been a mistake.

The cursed old man—they had completely already forgotten about him—was waiting there for them, explaining that he had been brought back to life by his patron (whoever that creep was). They fled, of course, (he had a freaking weed whacker), but they soon discovered that they couldn't leave the city. And when they tried to eat, the food would get lodged in their throats and they'd begin to choke.

The only thing they _could _eat was the food from Phineas's table. But it was like the blind man could _smell _them approach. In the entire five months they'd been trapped in Portland, Ella had only eaten twice. Some of her sisters hadn't at all.

Ella found comforts in books. During their travels whenever they came to a bookstore or library she'd stay behind a few miles to read. She'd devour the book in five minutes, then go on to the next one. Her sisters didn't understand this, but they never tried to stop her either. The best place she'd ever been to was that Harry Potter library in Michigan. Oh, the wonders of law.

Ella missed those good old days. She landed on a nearby branch and preened her wing, trying to avoid the blood from splattering in her hair. She was considered pretty by harpy standards, but the constant beating and lack of nutrition was slowly changing that.

The harpy stood and flew away, soaring above the city of Portland. She came to a stop at the library, where she crawled into her homemade nest of books and settled down. She had already read all of the ones in this certain library, and since she couldn't leave the town she had resorted to sneaking into bedroom windows and stealing the books left on night tables or beds, reading them under the light of the moon while everyone was sleeping.

Ella curled herself up in a ball and tried to get some sleep. If the god of death wasn't still chained, she would have died on her third night in Portland during their first attempt to raid Phineas's food. His whip had cut through her wing and she'd had to rest for an entire week before being able to fly again.

She closed her eyes and dreamed about one of her stops in travel…

**-o-O-o-**

_Ella and her sisters flew high above the city, squawking and giggling like the immature teenagers they were. (Well, technically they were a thousand four hundred thirty-two years old, but that isn't a lot when you translate it to the Greek world.)_

_They soared above a building that appeared to be on flames. Ella nearly missed it, it being the middle of the day. She was about to disregard the place when she realized that the building in question was a library._

_Oh, the tragedy. Ella wondered if there had been any books in there that she had not read. It was the medieval times, and most stories only ever had one or two written copies. _

Books. Books Ella has not read, _the harpy thought._

_Without telling her sisters where she was headed, Ella dove down to the street and through a burning window. The fire had not yet reached her story, but smoke was making it hard to see. Ella didn't mind._

_She stepped around fallen objects, looking for books. She found a couple, so she tucked them under her wing so that she could read them later._

_Then she stumbled across the Sybilline Books._

_It was the thickest book Ella had ever seen. Gold-plated and jewel-incrusted, it was marvellous. The harpy could just imagine the content inside. __She dropped her other books, forgotten, and waddled over, holding it with both hands. It was as heavy as it looked._

_The fire had finally spread to her story. Ella panicked and made a desperate dash for the window she had entered from, eventually dropping the book and scooping it in her claws and flying out. She barely made it._

_A few meters in the air and she realized that a few of the pages at caught flame. Frightened, Ella dropped the book and it landed on the street below, narrowly missing a stinky medieval sewer. The drop snuffed out the flames, and it landed with a nasty _PLOP!

_The harpy delicately descended next to it, studying the book. Mortals around her rushed toward the flaming building screaming prayers, and took no worry for Ella. She flipped open the text to find that only a few pages at the end had been charred. Still readable, though Ella would have to find another copy to see what the happily ever after was._

_The first page held a poem, and Ella nearly clapped her hands in delight. She loved poems._

_The next page had another, and so did the fourth, and the fifth, and all of them. Each page held a different poem of different lengths, and most of them didn't interline with each other in any way. Each plot was different, and it had Ella mesmerized._

_It took her two hours to get to the ending. By then she had flown to the rooftop of a far away building and had snuggled close to its chimney for warmth._

Wisdom's daughter walks alone,  
The mark of Athena burns through Rome.

_The book ended suddenly. The fire had charred out the rest of it. Ella pouted slightly, but turned the book over and closed it. She jumped up and flew south, leaving to find her sisters._

**-o-O-o-**

Ella didn't like abrupt endings. She needed to find out what happened. But nearly a thousand years passed from that day and she had never found another copy of that book.

She didn't know what had happened to the novel in the end. For all she knew a storm had destroyed it, or maybe some archaeologist found it in the sand somewhere and it was being held in a museum, studies being conducted on it over and over.

Ella liked the idea of that. Some scientists trying to figure the poems out while Ella had it all stored in her memory.

She hadn't thought of the mysterious book in years until she saw Percy Jackson for the first time.

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**I'm sorry, but Ella is so unappreciated! I had to write this!**

**Now... Review!**


	6. That Time at the Civil War Museum

**...Hi.**

**I'm tired, and this was a pre-written chapter, and so because I'm bored and tired I'm going to update it just for the heck of it.**

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**_(During _****The Mark of Athena_, what happened while Annabeth, Piper, Hazel and Aphrodite/Venus were having their tea party at the guys' POV.)_**

**_AN: I've never been to this museum so I'm making up how it goes. Also, I have no clue about anything on the civil war in America, so I'm making that up too. Also, yes I did take the _****Curse you, Gleeson the satyr! _from_ Phineas and Ferb_. It's supposed to be funny._**

Leo had thought the museum would be cool. It gave him a chance to be a part of the action off of the boat but not actually have to fight many people. I mean, how bad can a museum be? And things in a civil war museum are _old. _One spark and the whole thing would burst into flames, giving he and his buddies plenty of leisure time to stroll away from the exploding building behind them, pull on some epic back-pocket shades, and report their findings to their crew members… _like a boss_.

(Of course, the klutz Frank would probably end up poking his eye while putting on the sunglasses, resulting in him tripping over his own feet and crashing into Leo, who then crashes into Jason, and they'd all end up in an embarrassing heap on the floor.)

That, or they wouldn't escape the building fast enough and Frank and Jason would be turned into cinders.

Leo frowned. Okay, maybe he wouldn't try to use fire.

So, off to the museum. The trio woke up early to get a head start, when barely anyone was awake yet. They wanted to be in and out of that place as fast as possible—they _were _on a deadline, after all.

Why was it always deadlines? Leo wondered as they walked down the streets of Charleston. First it was the winter solstice with saving Hera, then the beginning of summer with finishing the Argo II, and now _this._

Well, easy-breezy. It was only one museum.

Too bad Jason had forgotten how to find it.

That had turned out to be a frustration and a problem. They had to resort to asking Starbucks employees where the civil war museum was located, and Leo noticed the girl staring at Jason's face a lot longer than she should have.

Finally, the museum. Leo knew he had made a mistake the second he opened the door to find the only living organisms inside were _old people._

They paid for their day passes at the front desk and grouped up near the washrooms. "Okay, guys, split up," Jason instructed, "but always stay in the same room. No one goes anywhere if they can't see at least one other. Make sense?"

They both nodded, and they began to search the first room for a map to the Mark of Athena. The _giant's bane _in the prophecy.

Leo got bored after, like, five seconds. His ADHD wouldn't let him concentrate on anything. He picked an exciting looking weapon and tried to read the plaque in front of it, but it was written in that long boring way that made you want to fall asleep just by glancing at it.

Looking around, he saw both Frank and Jason calmly reading the plaques of relics nearby, looking for clues to the map. Leo gritted his teeth and turned back to his own plaque.

_In the civil war, cannon balls as such these were used to fire at enemy soldiers in the…_

"Watcha looking at there, son?"

Leo turned to see a man older than his grandfather look interestingly past his shoulder at the cannon. "Uh, this thing," he replied. "Did you know they were used to fire at enemy soldiers?"

"That's what you usually do with cannonballs," the man said with a chuckle.

"Yeah, I could have guessed that," Leo said.

"I remember my grandfather was in the war," the man started, and Leo knew he was doomed. "He used to sit me in his lap and tell me war stories—tales of horrific men sacrificing their lives for others."

"That's… pretty wicked," said Leo, glancing at Frank nervously. _Help me, _his eyes pleaded, but Frank only shrugged unhelpfully.

"There was old man Thomson, who was my grand-pop's best bud in the war. He believed in cruelty in slavery, just like the rest of us folks. And then old man Plankton and his four sons, Ronald, Bobby, Stevie and Rob. He also had two twin brothers, George and Butler. And then there was his wife, Joanne, and his sisters Beckie, Clarrise, Maddy and Marie-Claire, and his daughters Cony and Mary. Then grand-pop was friends with Conner, who was married to Claire and had Jonathan and Jeremy as sons, and Madison, who pretended to be a boy just to join the war. And then there was Ruther, Peter, Gordon, Geronimo, Bartholomew, Liam, Arnold, Ralphie and a few others. Oh, and there was Fletcher, Mac, Colin… did I already say Ralphie?"

By the end of the hour when the boys regrouped to tell their findings, Leo could list the names of thirty-four soldiers in the war, if they died and how, if they were married or not, how many kids they had and all their names, and their military status. As well as pretty much every freaking thing you would want to know about Abraham Lincoln.

"I didn't find anything," Jason told the others. "Frank?"

The big guys shook his head.

"Don't even ask," Leo put in, holding up his hand. "I've got nothing either."

"Maybe we can search the second story," Jason said. "If we can't find anything there, we'll do another quick survey of the place and then head back to the ship. Hopefully the girls would have done a better job finding the map to the Mark of Athena than we did."

"I wonder how they're doing," Frank mused out loud as they climbed the stairs to the second story. There were less people in here, but still all elderly.

Leo began to read another plaque when suddenly someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Ugh," he muttered. "Not you again—" He froze when he realized the man he wasn't speaking to was not some old boring grandpa, but a glowing gray zombie. He held a riffle in one hand, and thrust the barrel at Leo's chest.

"You?" he croaked. "Who are… you?"

Leo didn't say anything for a moment, then summoned a quick fire and shot the guy in the chest. It stumbled away, screaming at the gaping hole in its front. The tourists didn't notice, but Frank and Jason did.

"Holy—!" Jason pulled out his weapon, and Frank did the same. Leo jumped over a barrel of gunpowder on display and slid underneath another cannon to get to them, stepping behind Jason.

A few more zombie guys walked out of the shadows and stalked toward them. "Frank!" Jason hissed, holding his blade out in front of them. "Talk to them. Leo; get the tourists out of here!"

"How the heck am I gonna do that?"

Jason didn't reply, but sliced his blade at a zombie dude as it got too close. Leo looked around, trying to figure something out, when his eyes rested on the fire alarm. He rushed over to it and pressed it down.

An alarm sounded, which hurt his ears a bit, but did the job. After a moment or two of confusion, the elderly began to make their way downstairs and outside the building.

"Peace!" Frank tried to tell the zombies. "We come in peace! Don't kill us!"

"Mark… of… Athena?" one of the zombie dudes asked slowly, leaning on its riffle as if it were a cane. They must have overheard them talking about it.

"Yes! Yes, we're looking for it!" Frank said. "Do you know where it is?"

The zombies stared at him for a moment, their expressions impossible to read, then parted away to reveal a fresher looking zombie, obviously the leader. "You search for the Mark of Athena?" it asked easily. "You are not spawn of the goddess."

"No, but our friend is, and we super-duper-ultra-mega _need _to find it so that we can finish our quest and save the earth from earth," Leo explained.

The zombie ghosts began to laugh, which made the demigods begin to despair. "We fought the Greeks during the civil war," the leader began. "Greeks are our enemies. You search for the Mark of Athena? It will stay where it is, away from you _dirty_ people."

"I'm Roman too," Jason tried.

"You don't understand the importance of this!" Leo exclaimed.

"Dirty people?" Frank demanded outrageously.

The ghost man laughed. "Get them!" he yelled, taking out his riffle and shooting Leo in the head. Fortunately for his head, the thing hadn't been loaded and the machine just clicked.

"Oh well," the ghost laughed. "Guess we have to do this the hard way." He reached to his side and pulled out a wicked looking sword, thrusting it into the air. _"CHARGE!"_

**-o-O-o-**

_Out the window to the ground,  
down the street and into town;_

_Away from the ghosts, now here we run,  
get caught and it will not be fun._

How many times had Leo been tried to kill in his lifetime? Way too many, he decided.

And looking back at it, downtown Charleston was not going to thank the three demigods any time soon. (Leo sincerely apologizes to the lady he had to sacrifice to the sewers. It was for the greater good.)

At that point they were just focusing on trying to get away. Then Piper Iris-messaged them to get back to the ship, and they were there in a jiffy. They stormed up the library staircase to the roof, where Frank turned into an eagle and Jason rode the winds.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Leo yelled at them as they flew off.

Frank turned back and grabbed him by the arms, flying up into the sky, just as the angry ghosts reached the rooftop.

"Aw, seriously!" he yelled, his feet flailing in the air.

They flew over to the docks, Leo cursing and screaming the entire thing. The Argo II finally came into view, just as something began to shoot arrows at them. Romans. Perfect. As bad as it seemed, it was all in control until Hedge shot an exploding spear at them.

_Nice._

Frank's wings were singed and he fell into Fort Sumter, dropping Leo. The Hispanic yelled something in Spanish—probably something like _Curse you, Gleeson the satyr!—_when Jason grabbed the hem of his T-Shirt and turned their fall more into a bungee-jumping free-fall.

Leo landed on a barrel of wine, which broke his landing (somewhat). He felt horrible, but the screaming Romans with pointy spears made him change his mind about that. (Also, Frank was an elephant. Of all the ways he could die, Leo was not planning on '_getting smushed by African wildlife'.)_

Another giant eagle turned on him, and Leo shot fire at it. He shoved a lady out of his way and ducked behind another portico just as an explosion rang out behind him.

Someone grabbed his arm and Leo readied himself to punch whoever it was in the face when he realized it was Jason. "Oh," he said, shaking out the fire that had been beginning to form in his hand. "Hey."

"We're getting out of here," Jason said.

"What about Frank and Annabeth?" He had seen her around the fort as he had avoided being killed.

"Frank's coming. Annabeth told me not to wait for her."

Leo gave him a look. "If Annabeth doesn't come back Percy will kill you," he said.

Jason sighed. "I know. But that doesn't matter. We just have to get out of here, now."

Leo sighed. "I will not enjoy this," he said sadly.

"It won't be too pleasant for me either," Jason replied, and he grabbed Leo by the collar of his T-Shirt, flying upwards. A Roman eagle came toward them but Jason stopped it mid-air.

Leo sent some fire down on the Romans below, hoping he didn't burn some innocent tourist by accident. Frank had turned into a cheetah and was racing to the ship below them.

Jason dropped down on the deck, and Frank turned back into a human just as he stepped onto the ship. But his momentum kept him going and he crashed right into Hazel and Leo, tumbling into an awkward heap on the floor.

"Nice," Jason commented dryly, turning and walking away from the scene with his hands tucked awkwardly in his pockets.

* * *

**That wan't actually as bad as I thought it would be. Congrats to myself!**

**Anyway, review now. And because I neglected on doing it before...**

**Disclaimer: I'm too lazy to write it out.**


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